China’s bride prices still rising despite crackdowns on outdated sexist custom for rights to a woman’s labour and her body
- Staggering amounts are demanded by some families in a backwards tribal custom allowing ownership of a woman’s body that is still popular in some areas of China
- Soaring bride prices remain a public concern in China, especially in rural areas where a surplus of men means many remain single.
After dating a woman for several years, a man from northwest China said he had to break up with her because he couldn’t afford the nearly 300,000 yuan (US$47,00) bride price when they considered marriage.
“I asked locals and was told this is commonplace. I hope you can crack down on this phenomenon,” wrote the man, surnamed Qin, last month on the page of “Messages to Leaders” on people.com.cn, an online channel for public complaints in China.
An important custom dating back to ancient times, a bride price is a sum of money paid by the groom’s family to the bride’s as they transfer over the rights to control a woman’s body and labour.
In Zhengning county, Gansu province, northwest China where Qin lives, the average annual income was just over 20,000 yuan (US$3,136) last year, meaning it would take 15 years to raise the money demanded as the bride price by Qin’s girlfriend’s family.
Despite Beijing’s efforts to reform wedding traditions and encourage frugality in recent years, soaring bride prices remain a public concern in China, especially in rural areas where a surplus of men means many remain single.
The Zhengning government said it had set an upper limit for the bride price at 80,000 yuan (US$12,547) for rural families, and 60,000 yuan (US$9,410) for public servants in its latest clampdown on high marriage expenses, according to its reply to Qin on April 7.
“But rectifying high bride prices is a long-term and complicated process and it’s quite difficult for it to be changed by any hard and fast rule,” it added.